Kissing Corpses by Amy Leigh Strickland Page B

been a while, he'll be low on blood count and more dry. It would be stupid to play with fire when he's extra flammable.”
    “We can tell if he's fed by trying to look at him in a mirror!” I said.
    “Right, but you see, we have to be able to see him with our eyes. We have no idea where lover-boy is,” Gilchrist said. “Here,” he added, handing the crossbow to Cody. “Hold it up near eye level. Keep both eyes open. It's automatic so you cock it by pulling here. There's no stirrup. It takes a second to reload and he's fast, so aim well before you fire.”
    “You want me to shoot him?” he asked.
    There was a crash of breaking glass at the back of the house. Cody ran into his bedroom and came out holding a dagger. He unwrapped a note from around the handle and held it out for me. “I assume this is for you.”
    The handwriting was beautiful.

Miss Kendall Harker,
From the night we first met, I knew that you belonged at my side. There was something extraordinary about you, even in your most fragile moment.
In all of my time on this earth I have never met a woman as beautiful as you who has the wit and the strength of will to match it. Feeling the pounding of your heart through your breasts, warm against my chest, as we lay together, reminds me of what it feels like to be alive. Not since my death have I felt such excitement and hope for my future. Our future.
All of my roaming through time has been for the sole purpose of finding you. I never wish to be separated from you. Never again will I have to go to my grave alone. My daily death will be a sweet respite with your body next to mine. You are mine, and either you or I or both shall perish before I ever let you go.

Forever Yours,
Rawdon Hale

    The last words felt like sleet running down my spine. He was never going to let me go unless he was destroyed. The situation was clear to me now. We couldn't stay in Cody's house forever, holed up, waiting. We would never know where he had gone to ground to kill him and we would never be able to be certain that he wasn't waiting somewhere in the shadows at night. He was stronger. He was faster. Gilchrist had been trying to kill him for fifteen years with no success.
    I picked up Cody's car keys off of the end table by the door. I didn't put a coat on, I just opened the front door in my bluejeans and sweater and ran.
    “Kendall!” Geneva screamed.
    “Get back in here, you idiot!” Gilchrist called after me.
    I threw open the door to Cody's truck and hopped up in the cab. I slammed it shut and then Rawdon was at the door, looking through the driver's side window at me. His lips moved, but through the window his voice was muffled. I tore my eyes away before he had time to hypnotize me, turned the key, pushed the shifter, and slammed the gas.
    I heard a thunk as I peeled out and looked in the rearview mirror. Cody had climbed into the bed of the pickup and had made it over the tailgate in time for me to pull away. Rawdon stood in the road behind us, the shadows creeping up to swallow him.
    Cody slapped the back window of the cab. I reached back and popped the lock before peeling around a corner.
    “What the hell are you doing?” he snarled as he climbed through the window.
    “I was trying to lure him away from you. This is my problem.”
    “In my new truck.”
    “To hell with your truck,” I said.
    Rawdon was in front of me. I instinctually slammed the brakes. It's a natural reaction, upon seeing a person in the road. As I was screeching to a halt, I remembered that he was dead and that he wanted to kill me. I switched my foot to the gas and struck him. We crashed through a picket fence at the end of the cul-de-sac and he vanished under the bumper of the truck.
    “Is he dead?” Cody asked as the truck grinded to a halt on some unfortunate homeowner's lawn. The once flawless, candy-apple-red paint was covered in gouges and splinters of white wood fencing.
    “I don't know,” I said. “We should check.”
    “Or we